Primary Sources

Wars with the California Tribes

Wars with the California Tribes (1891)

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CHAPTER 3

WARS WITH THE CALIFORNIA TRIBES

WHILE the Oregon volunteers were still at the Dalles in defence
[sic] of their homes, gold was discovered
in paying quantities at Mormon Island and in Sutter's mill race in
California. In a trice all California was mad, and
the gold craze spread all over the United States. A flood of emigration by
land and sea poured into the gold coasts of
the Pacific. The year 1849 became historic and the forty-niner a character
in the tragedy and comedy of the times.

The flood of emigration, the crush of enterprise, the selfishness
of the greed, the cruelty of acquisition,
under the circumstances, proved to be greater evils for the Indians than
even the discovery of Columbus and the Spanish
occupation. Gold miners had no patience with Indians. They would ransack
the mountains in search of claims. They would
kill all who interfered with their supposed rights. The Indian knew this,
as a rule "vacated the ranche [sic]" on
a single warning. If he stood for his rights, the policy of the Government
was to get rid of him as

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quickly as possible by buying him out, so as to avoid bloodshed.

Generally speaking the Indians of California were not fighters.
The Yrekas in the north were brave and gave
much trouble, but the tribes to the south lacked union and spirit. The
entire Indian population did not exceed 30,000,
of whom not over half were classed as wild Indians. The first clash with
California Indians came at Mormon Island, and
it was instigated by miners, who perhaps sought an occasion to teach their
hostile neighbors what they might expect if
they did not clear the way for exploration and occupancy. It was a cruel
"set to" which resulted fatally to a number on
both sides, but which resulted in impressing the Indians with the
conviction that the vicinity of a gold mining camp,
was the least desirable place in the world for their own camps.

As miners pushed their way into the mountains and mining camps
became thick in the gulches and valleys, the
difficulties with the Indians increased. Skirmishes became frequent, but
as a rule the Indians were marauders and cattle
thieves, rather than open, organized warriors. They were "pestiferous" as
the mining phrase went, and in this respect
were more objects of malice than if they had been regularly

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on the warpath. The Government harkened to the calls for aid to put them
down. It could not send troops so far, but it
sent 100,000 arms. The miners quickly formed a local militia and would, no
doubt, have made a war of extermination upon
the Indians of the Territory, had not the Government in a spirit of
humanity, hit on the plan of treating with them and
giving them a place on the reservations. Most of the tribes took their
places gladly on the reservations, but some of
the mountain tribes either feared to come in or preferred the freedom of
their mountain fastnesses.

These were treated as hostiles, and the improvised militia of
California quickly made war upon them. The
California wars of 1851-52 were chiefly those brought about by efforts to
catch these hostiles and corral them on
reservations. The hostiles of the San Joaquin Valley were hunted down and
brought to terms by the celebrated Mariposa
Battalion. Jose Rey, chief of the Chowchillas, was defeated in several
engagements and finally lost his life in a battle
which determined the fate of his tribe. The Yosemites, or "Grizzly
Bears," who lived in the wonderful cannon valley
which perpetuated their name, were brave warriors by repute, but when
confronted by militia they offered little
resistance.

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The wars in and around Sacramento Valley amounted to but little more than
a succession of skirmishes. By 1853 the
California tribes were pretty generally subdued and driven on to the five
reservations set apart for them. These
reservations were badly managed by the Government agents, who drew
plentiful supplies from the Government but gave the
Indians none. The consequence was the reservations fell into disrepute and
were practically abandoned. White settlers
took mean advantage of the absence of the Indians, the latter having been
forced into a nomadic life and having become
more thievish and cowardly than ever before. Every Indian theft, every
attempt on their part to scout and live, or to
come back on their reservations to assert their rights, became a cause for
war upon them, and it is quite probable that
more perished in the difficulties which thus arose, than in all the prior
effort to conquer them. Over 150 Indians were
massacred by white settlers at Nome Cult in 1858, the only excuse being
that they had driven off the cattle of the
settlers from the reservation, because they were consuming the acorns on
which the Indians depended for food. At King's
River, the Indians were shot down by scores, and driven away because the
Government would not support them and they had
become

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a nuisance. In these humanitarian efforts to exterminate the natives, the
settlers had the support of the state militia
and there was no sentiment against this kind of murder. At Mattole Station
and Humboldt Bay, similar massacres took
place and there was no mercy shown to a refractory Indian. The next
morning after the massacre at Humboldt Bay, sixty
corpses of Indian men, women, boys and girls, showed how impious had been
their refusal to go off to the then secluded
region of Mendocino.

The character of the California settlers, gathered from all the
ends of the earth, inspired by greed, with a
golden stake in hand, was such as to make Indian wars of California
frequent, short and decisive. They were wars which
involved excessive cruelty, wars of extermination. The miners were a
society by themselves, and a unit in their own
protection. There was, of course, a powerful necessity for protection, as
was shown not only in their wars with Indians,
but in those stern measures which became the code of justice of their
"Vigilance Committees." They were really at war
with themselves, and peace and the reign of law came only after the rope
had taught many of their own number, the same
lessons their shotguns had impressed on the Indians.